As far as places to eat IN Louisville, I haven’t had a lot of luck so far. I’ve eaten at the Brown Hotel, Winchells, and Captain Quarters Yacht Club as they came highly recommended and we tried the local specialty “hot brown” at each and we were never impressed. A local could probably give better advice but the main touristy hot spots (ie the ones I mentioned) were decidedly unimpressive. I don’t judge iconic restaurants harshly, Indy’s St Elmos Steakhouse, Tampa’s Berns and Columbia, OKC Cattlemen’s Steakhouse (not connected to a chain of the same name), New Orleans’ Commanders Palace and Brennan’s, Boston’s Parker House, Memphis’ Rendezvous and Dyers, Amarillo’s Big Texan Steakhouse, etc...are all old school iconic touristy spots that are good and live up to or exceed the hype. So far I haven’t found any iconic restaurants in Louisville that have lived up to the hype, they’re like Miami’s Joes Stone Crab and Versailles, still famous for no discernible reason other than the history. And the “hot brown” is probably the worst iconic food for a city I’ve had other than jellied eel and meat pies in London it’s definitely not on par with Tampa’s Cubans, Philadelphia’s CheeseSteak, Atlantic City’s Submarines, NYC’s bagles, Pizza and pastrami, OKCs Chicken Fried Steak, Maine’s Lobster Rolls etc...
If you find a really good restaurant in Louisville, let me know because I didn’t find one yet. BUT....sidenote, if you want to take a reasonable sidetrip (I think 2-3 hours round trip maybe) Moonlite BBQ in semi-nearby Owensboro really does live up to the hype. It’s in my top 10 BBQ restaurants I’ve been to and I make it a point on my travels to try the iconic and/or currently famous for quality BBQ. It might even be top 5 I’d need to think about it. The chopped and sliced bbq mutton which the region is famous for is FANTASTIC but the other meats were great as well.